It is with great pleasure that today we get to announce the Invitation Round Winners of the Ponoko 10-Day Design Challenge: Jewelry for Summer. Below are images and links to each design and the designers page on Ponoko. The winning designs are all available for sale so feel free to click through and get a unique gift for yourself or someone you love.

The Brief
Summer is a time for sun and fun. Your challenge is to create intriguing laser cut jewelry inspired by summer - within 10 days!

The Judges
Ponoko’s own Dan Emery
Jennifer Perkins from Naughty Secretary Club
Ronen Kadushin

The Winner

Transient Cool - a pendant/fan by Nervous

Judging comments
Dan: an elegant design that expresses summer in a beautiful way.
Jennifer: Who doesn’t need a fan in the summer?
Ronen: Nature and architecture as jewelry. An intriguing object.

Congratulations to Nervous System who’ve just won $1,000 in cash, free advertising on the Ponoko home page and made for free for all buyer purchases for an entire month! Not only was this pieces the judges favorite, it was the peoples favorite gathering an enormous amount of votes.

The runners-up

simply charmed by Lease

I see sea horses by SuperVery

We’ve again had a great response to our 10-Day Design Challenge - Jewelry for summer, and again it’s made for a hard job choosing the final group of 20. Below you can see pictures of each open round finalist, and BELOW THE PICTURES is the voting panel. If you’re a Designer of one of the winners below, feel free to invite all your friends and family to vote for you. In our very first Design Challenge there was a very lively discussion about the choice of winners. So for all of you with strong opinions this is your chance to make them heard.

Please note you can click on the images of each product to go to their individual showroom page for more detail. Please remember, clicking on the image is NOT A VOTE for the product, you need scroll down to the bottom of the post and make your choice in the poll located there. Good luck everyone! Voting closes on Sunday August 3rd.

1. Cellular by brevity

2. Summer Flower - L’Orange Blanc Pendant by ColinFrancis

3. Tiny Breaker Pendant by ColinFrancis

4. Nautilus Earrings by DSCulp

5. Swallowtail by DSCulp

6. Table Bracelet by Mr. Roboto

7. Summer In the City Skyscape Ring Set by gemmafactrix

8. Daisy chain by Hammer

9. One swallow doesn’t make a summer by Hammer

10. Summer locket necklace by Iheartdesignandstuff

11. simply charmed by Lease

12. Summer Sunshine Pendant by Marmalade

13. Bitten Ice Cream Cone charm necklace by nbscloset

14. Transient Cool - a pendant/fan by nervous

15. Perforated Jewelry Band by Producer

16. Rotating Earring by Producer

17. Twin Pops Charm by rhymeswithfun

18. Pulsera by rod

19. Hello Daisy! by SarahCatherineDesigns

20. I see sea horses by SuperVery

The summer jewellery design competition is now on and people are beginning to submit their awesome laser cut jewellery ideas. DSCulp has submitted a design that caught my eye called Nautilus Earrings. The design was very much inspired by nature, he says “the nautilus has survived relatively unchanged for the last 500 million years and is known for its unique and beautiful shell. This shell presents one of the finest natural examples of a logarithmic spiral. This same spiral shows itself in the construction of storms, the arms of galaxies, the behaviour of insects and birds, the blooming of a flower and even the nerves of the human cornea. It is for this reason that it is sometimes referred to as “God’s Fingerprint” and perhaps why it resonates so strongly as a symbol of beauty”.

I look forward to seeing some more inspirational laser cut jewellery designs as the deadline approaches. Find out how to submit your design here.

Well, we thought we should celebrate summer - so you submit your coolest idea for a jewelry design inspired by summer, the community votes on your design and our judges pick the winners. The top 20 get their product made and shipped for free and the #1 gets $1,000 cash + free making for a month + free home page advertising for a month. You can find out all the detail here.

And if you want to let others know about it – you can:

• use a button / banner from here…
• click the share button at the bottom of this post.

We can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store!!

It is with great pleasure that today we announce the Invitation Round Winners of the Ponoko 10-Day Design Challenge: Puzzles and Games. Below are images and links to each design and the designers page on Ponoko. The winning designs are all available for sale so feel free to click through and get a unique gift for yourself or someone you love.

Judges for this round of the 10-Day Design Challenge were Ponoko’s own Dan Emery and Ronen Kadushin. We’ve included some of their judging comments below the winning designs.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all participants who made this such a great success. We’re planning more challenges for the very near future so you can all stretch your designing talent again.

Grand prize winner: Maze Maker by Observatory

Dan: A great design that looks fun and is interactive. It makes nice use of material and has innovative jointing techniques. The whole idea was presented very well with good use of video to fully explain the concept.

People’s choice winner: Marble Madness by DSCulp

Dan: We think the people have chosen a great winner for Ponoko’s first ever Peoples Choice award. DSCulp did a great job of promoting the 10-Day Design Challenge too.

Runner up winner: Zen - the infinite puzzle by SquirrelswithHammers

Dan: The design of this puzzle is very clever and well resolved design. It’s amazing that so many different patterns can be derived from the same engraving. A great coffee table piece.

Ronen: A piece that offers a free aesthetic exploration into patterns and combinations. A puzzle that is creative and fun, where any result is pleasing to the eye.

Runner up winner: Underground Maze by Aaron Tanninen

Dan: This is quite a complex design but it has been pulled off well. Nice use of the translucency of the materials.

Ronen: A pleasurable challenge as well as a learning experience, very well packaged in a fashionable, appealing product, and a clever use of the laser precision cutting qualities, materials colors and transparencies.

And lastly, a big shout out to all the Invitation Round entrants.

As with the 10-Day Jewelry Design Challenge we’ve been seeing some great puzzle designs coming in for the Design Challenge for Games and Puzzles (vote here for your favorite). One thing we want to do is make sure that everyone has a great experience in making their designs and even better, showing them off the best they can. It’s kind of anti-climactic if you’ve worked hard to create something amazing to share but end up with photos that just don’t do it justice. So we thought we’d republish some tips on how to best photograph your jewelry creations so you could apply them to your puzzle creations as well.

Our Design Genius - Dan, who’s made Instructables on lamps, holiday decorations and jewelry suggests the following:

*A photo on a plain background. It may also be good to have it from a few angles:

*A photo with the puzzle being used by a real person! This will give us context for the design.

*Try avoid using the flash as this will wash out the photo.
*Use a tripod if possible and lots of natural light will give them the most accurate colors.

Here are some links that give some awesome advice on photographing products:

TableTopStudio Jewelry Photography Techniques and their Photo Tips page - Although they promote professional tools, they give the basics. There are also some good ideas to copy and improvise with such as making plain backdrops, etc.
Intro to Product Photography (for Instructables) - great step-by-step instructable on taking good photos of small to medium sized objects.

Learn Photography - this is also an Instructable on basic photography going over lighting and positioning.

Hope this helps. So remember, once the design is done, it ain’t over! Make sure you’ve got great photos to share and show off!

We’ve had an awesome response to our 10-Day Design Challenge - Games and Puzzles. But that’s made it so hard to choose a final group of 15 that our judges ended up with 17, and refused to cut it back. Below you can see pictures of each puzzle, and BELOW THE PICTURES is the voting panel. If you’re a Designer of one of the winners below, feel free to invite all your friends and family to vote for you. In our first Design Challenge there was a very lively discussion about the choice of winners. So for all of you with strong opinions this is your chance to make them heard.

Please note you can click on the images of each product to go to their individual showroom page for more detail. Some are obvious in how they work, but others are intricate and may need a closer look to understand. Please remember, clicking on the image is NOT A VOTE for the product, you need scroll down to the bottom of the post and make your choice in the poll located there. Good luck everyone!

1. zen the infinite puzzle

2. Portrait Puzzle

3. Ponoku Anyone

4. Marble Madness

5. Tessa

6. Underground Maze

7. Crane Mobile - 6mm

8. Pteradactyl - 9mm

9. Layer Puzzle

10. California County Puzzle

11. Match the Typeface

12. Build (h)and Share: Maze Maker

13. Grimly Dominoes

14. Erik & Styx Double-Sided Puzzle

15. Puzzle Box

16. InterlaceCircle

17. Gears

The final part of the interview ends with Michael rejecting technology in favor of dirtying his hands, and ends with his latest projects, including a 3D puzzle, how convenient.

Q3. What technologies do you intend to use in the future?

for the moment, i’m taking a short break from technology. i want to spend some time getting hands on with materials for a while so that when i employ technological processes again it will be in a way that is messier and where the technology is perhaps not even noticeable. for me, i prefer it when the technology is not so prominent in the work, otherwise it becomes about the technology alone. i am also exploring aspects of decay and entropy in my work at the moment and have yet to find a tech process that fits this direction. more than likely it will be a combination of processes which allow for aspects of growth followed by acts of erosion and breakdown.

Q4. Are there any artists, designers or scientists using emerging technology that you find inspirational or sickening cause they did it first??

hmm, mostly i find architecture inspiring. zaha hadid’s designs often do it for me (the abu dhabi plan for example).
greg lynn’s blob wall got me because he did it first, and roxy paine’s automated sculpture and painting machines from a few years back still get me.

Q5. What are you currently working on?

A small scale sculpture for a multiple work. still in the idea stage but i am thinking of a sculpture that acts a bit like a 3d puzzle, with 10-15 interlocking geometric parts. it will probably end up being made from moulded resin and concrete parts. as this stage it is more a sense of the thing i have, the scale of it, it’s materiality, how one should interact with it etc. the final form will take a bit of experimentation.
i’m also working on a collaborative proposal with an architect (wulf walter boettger) for a series of installation works form wallpaper patterns using plotted vinyl, to architectonic sculptural elements using perspex and expanding foam.

So there we have the final installment of Michael Kutschbach’s interview. Perhaps we will see some of his latest work as part of the Ponoko Games & Puzzles, 10 day challenge?

Oh Yeah, Michael is represented by Greenaway Art Gallery

Since we’re talking about puzzles and games, I thought it was worth pointing out Lee Krasnow. Lee is a puzzle-maker from San Francisco, and creates some awesomely perplexing objects! There is a great interview with him over at makezine, in which he talks the viewer through some of his puzzles and introduces us to his method of working.

Lee Krasnow (above, makezine) and one of his puzzles, 2-in-1 (below, pwdbp.com)

Perhaps the most incredible thing is that Lee’s tool of choice is a table-saw. Using a jig of his own design, he manages to cut highly precise and tiny parts – he has posted an instructable describing how to make some jigs and ten of his puzzles here. It’s daunting, but highly inspiring stuff and makes me think that there’s no reason why a laser-cut puzzle should be just a 2D affair.

In fact my favourite Ponoko project of late has been Carbon by ckharnett (a recent product of the week) – a game-like geometric construction of simply hexagons, pentagons and triangular connectors. The constructions possible with this system are endless!

In the spirit of Ponoko’s latest 10 Day Challenge, myself and the other writers are diving deep into the theme. Here are a couple of images of traditional games by puzzle creator and academic Jacques Haubrich.

This sleek board would also be great with a set of die cut and ornately engraved checkers.

I love how the classic tic-tac-toe frame is a separate puzzle in itself.